Speaking at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Von Braun Center, Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, described the idea as "just a gesture."

However, Shelby pointed out TVA has significant debt of about $24 billion and reiterated his belief that the private sector is generally more efficient in running a business than the government.

Overall, though, Shelby said he did not expect the conversation of selling TVA -- which provides electricity to north Alabama and parts of six other states and maintains flood control on north Alabama rivers -- to gain much traction.

"It is an outline," Shelby said of Obama's budget, which was released last week. "Among other things, it's got a lot of taxes in it so I don't know any Republicans who are going to vote for it. (Selling TVA) is a talking point. He did, among other things, (bring) up the subject of selling TVA but he didn't talk about selling a lot of other federal-owned power projects.

"First of all, let's be honest with one another. TVA has a huge debt -- $24 billion. I don't know who would buy it if they wanted it. If someone would erase the debt, I'd buy it. I do believe, and I always believe this, private enterprise will run an agency more efficiently than the government. But I don't believe TVA's going to be sold right now. If it is, we'll get serious about it. That's just a gesture."

Obama cited TVA's rising debt as a reason for shedding it from the government coffers.

Here is the full text of Obama's proposal regarding TVA:

Since its creation in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the federally owned and operated Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has been producing low-cost electricity and man-aging natural resources for a large portion of the Southeastern United States. TVA's power service territory includes most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia, covering 80,000 square miles and serving more than nine million people. TVA is a self-financing Government corporation, funding operations through electricity sales and bond financing.

In order to meet its future capacity needs, fulfill its environmental responsibilities, and modernize its aging generation system, TVA's current capital investment plan includes more than $25 billion of expenditures over the next 10 years. However, TVA's anticipated capital needs are likely to quickly exceed the agency's $30 billion statutory cap on indebtedness. Reducing or eliminating the federal government's role in programs such as TVA, which have achieved their original objectives and no longer require federal participation, can help put the nation on a sustainable fiscal path. Given TVA's debt constraints and the impact to the Federal deficit of its increasing capital expenditures, the administration intends to undertake a strategic review of options for addressing TVA's financial situation, including the possible divestiture of TVA, in part or as a whole."